BERLIN (Reuters) - An elderly German grew so attached to a poolside deckchair that he attacked a woman who moved his towel to another lounger, police said Tuesday.

When the 76-year-old pensioner returned to his favorite spot at a pool in the central town of Bad Endbach, he was enraged to find the woman, 29, had moved his towel to an unoccupied lounger so she could lie down next to her mother.

The other chair was just the same "but he didn't want to use that one," said a police spokesman in nearby Marburg.

When abusive language failed to shift the woman, the furious senior citizen got physical. "He tipped the chair over and her with it," the spokesman said. "She couldn't believe he went so far over such a trifle."